“Annalia 1933: Bard’s First Festival of the Years” to Be Held September 18–20

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Hannah Arendt Center and the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College announce Annalia 1933, a three-day festival exploring major events from the historically transformative year of 1933. Presented in collaboration with the Roosevelt Institute and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, the festival is free and open to the public and runs from Wednesday, September 18 to Friday, September 20 at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park and on Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus. Events include 20 short talks and a student-led cabaret.

A landmark year, 1933 was when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency in the United States. It was the beginning of totalitarianism and the American version of the welfare state. The year also marked the publication of the Humanist Manifesto, the release of the movies Duck Soup and King Kong, the dedication of Mount Rushmore, the Chicago World’s Fair, Osip Mandelstam’s “Stalin Epigram,” FDR’s first 100 days, the first concentration camps in Germany, the burning of the Reichstag, Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations following its invasion of Manchuria, and other historical turning points.

Annalia 1933: Bard’s First Festival of the Years features short talks and panel discussions presented by Bard faculty from across disciplines. Each talk will be approximately 10 minutes followed by 20 minutes of Q&A. Topics, which explore the multiple events that occurred in 1933, include “Native Advocates: Mount Rushmore, Indigenous Rights, and John Collier”; “Churchill, King and Country”; “A Century of Progress?: Race and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair”; “A Long Day’s Journey to the Right: The Strange Case of Louis-Ferdinand Celine”; “On the Eve of Destruction? East European Jewry, 1933”; “The Humanist Manifesto and the New Antihumanism”; and more. Bard Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature Justus Rosenberg, who fled Germany as a child in 1933, will also speak about his experiences in Germany in 1933. Looking closely at a single year from a plurality of perspectives, Annalia 1933’s program of events will offer insight into meaningful historical moments.

On Wednesday, September 18, a guided tour of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, and the panel discussion, “1933—A Transformative Year in American and World History,” led by David Woolner, Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian of the Roosevelt Institute, kick off the festival. The festival continues on Thursday, September 19 at Bard College with “1933—Adolf Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany,” a panel featuring Leon Botstein, president of Bard College. A series of short talks continues through Friday, September 20.

On Thursday, September 19 at 8:30 pm, in the Old Gym at Bard, students from Bard’s Theater and Performance Program present a Weimar cabaret featuring food, drinks, and performances. Songs, dances, monologues, and excerpts from plays that were performed in 1933 contribute to our exploration of the world as it was 80 years ago—on the cusp of disruption and transformation.

“It is striking how fleeting the historical consciousness not only of students but also of highly educated and often overly specialized adults is,” says Roger Berkowitz, academic director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. “We often learn history in broad sweeps by studying ‘The 20th Century’ or in narrow focus when we study ‘The Rise of Totalitarianism.’ The driving force behind Annalia 1933 is that certain years like 1933, 1914, and 1848 combine transformative and quotidian events. The year that both Hitler and Roosevelt came to power allows a reflection on the coherence and serendipity of history.”

Jonathan Becker, vice president and dean for International Affairs and Civic Engagement at Bard, says, “We hope that Bard’s new Annalia series will be an exciting way to give meaning and sense to our common history. We are particularly pleased that we will be doing this in collaboration with the Roosevelt Institute and Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Students and the public alike will be exposed to a wide array of events that cover tremendous geographic and thematic diversity.”

The Annalia festival is slated to be an annual event, focusing each time on a different significant year in history. Next year will be Annalia 1914. For more information, please visit www.bard.edu/hannaharendtcenter/annalia1933/.

The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College is an expansive home for thinking about and in the spirit of Hannah Arendt. The Arendt Center’s double mission is to sponsor and support the highest quality scholarship on Hannah Arendt and her work, and to be an intellectual incubator for engaged humanities thinking at Bard College and beyond, thinking that elevates and deepens the public argument that is the bedrock of our democracy.

As the intellectual cornerstone of Bard College’s Civic Engagement Initiative, the Arendt Center insists that liberal arts thinking is at the core of an enlightened politics. While policy questions are important, serious political engagement requires that citizens confront the intellectual foundations of the crises and challenges facing our world. The Arendt Center nurtures the foundational thinking that prepares students for active citizenship that can humanize an often inhuman world. For more information, please visit www.bard.edu/hannaharendtcenter/.

About the Bard Center for Civic Engagement (CCE)

Civic engagement is at the core of Bard’s identity. The College undertakes initiatives that reflect our belief in the link between liberal education and democracy, and further Bard’s mission as a private institution acting in the public interest. The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) supports students in Annandale by focusing on student-led initiatives and internships, developing community partnerships, and expanding science and sustainability efforts. Beyond the Annandale campus, the center works closely with Bard’s vast network of programs and partner institutions in the United States and abroad. It engages with important issues, whether with local service organizations, New York State prisons, public high schools, or in universities around the globe. For more information, please visit www.bard.edu/civicengagement/.